1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to redundant multistage switching networks, specifically to the non-stop addition of new ports to all routers of each row of such a network.
2. Description of Related Art
Many multistage switching networks are defined primarily as binary based. Some of these networks have been generalized for arbitrary fanouts.
FIG. 1A shows an 8-port binary Banyan network. Banyan networks are an example of multistage switching networks that have been generalized to arbitrary fanouts. FIG. 1B shows a 27-port ternary Banyan network. Both examples have the same number of rows.
There is no known investigation of the process of upgrading the fanout of Banyan networks. There are two likely reasons why such an upgrade path is undesirable. First, most implementations of switching networks using the Banyan architecture employ specific binary sorting algorithms to route traffic. Second, an upgrade of an n-stage 2n+1-port binary network to an n-stage 2×3n-port ternary network or n-stage 2×4n-port quaternary network would entail an exponential growth in number of ports required. From the examples already shown, this is a very large number even for the small numbers considered here.